MANILA: The Philippines said Wednesday that Iran has freed all 18 Filipino crew members of an oil tanker that was seized in the Gulf of Oman in January.
Iran’s navy had boarded the Greek-owned St. Nikolas, which was carrying 19 crew, off the coast of Oman. The only Greek crew member was released the following week.
Tehran began freeing the Filipino crew in batches at the end of January after a replacement crew was hired from Russia and other countries, Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega told AFP.
“They were not hostages... but they were not allowed to leave without replacements,” de Vega said of the Filipino crew.
The last of the Filipino crew returned to Manila last week, he added.
The Marshall Islands-flagged ship was carrying 145,000 tons of oil from Iraq and heading to Turkiye when it was seized. It has been anchored in the vicinity of the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
Iran’s state media has said the seizure was in retaliation to the “theft” Iranian oil by the United States from the same tanker, at the time named the Suez Rajan.
Tehran has responded with tit-for-tat measures in the past after seizures of Iranian oil shipments.
Crippling US sanctions, reimposed following Washington’s 2018 withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal, target Iranian oil and petrochemical sales in a bid to reduce Iran’s energy exports.
Manila is still seeking the release of 17 Filipinos taken hostage by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis in November after the rebels seized their ship in the Red Sea.
In a separate incident, two Filipino crew members were killed and three others injured in a Houthis missile attack on their ship in the Gulf of Aden on March 6.
The Houthis began attacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea last November, a campaign they say is intended to signal solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
De Vega said Manila was “encouraged by the developments such as the UN resolution calling on a ceasefire in Gaza.”
“Hopefully there will be peace in the Middle East and the Houthis will release them (Filipino seamen),” he said.
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Philippines says Iran frees 18 Filipino crew of seized oil tanker
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Philippines says Iran frees 18 Filipino crew of seized oil tanker
US judge rejects Trump administration’s halt of wind energy permits
- 17 Democratic-led states challenged the suspension
- Offshore wind group supports ruling for economic and energy priorities
BOSTON: A federal judge on Monday struck down an order by US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt all federal approvals for new wind energy projects, saying that agencies’ efforts to implement his directive were unlawful and arbitrary.
Agencies including the US Departments of the Interior and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency have been implementing a directive to halt all new approvals needed for both onshore and offshore wind projects pending a review of leasing and permitting practices.
Siding with a group of 17 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia, US District Judge Patti Saris in Boston said those agencies had failed to provide reasoned explanations for the actions they took to carry out the directive Trump issued on his first day back in office on January 20.
They could not lawfully under the Administrative Procedure Act indefinitely decline to review applications for permits, added Saris, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat whose state led the legal challenge, called the ruling “a big victory in our fight to keep tackling the climate crisis” in a social media post.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement that Trump through his order had “unleashed America’s energy dominance to protect our economic and national security.”
Trump has sought to boost government support for fossil fuels and maximize output in the United States, the world’s top oil and gas producer, after campaigning for the presidency on the refrain of “drill, baby, drill.”
The states, led by New York, sued in May, after the Interior Department ordered Norway’s Equinor to halt construction on its Empire Wind offshore wind project off the coast of New York.
While the administration allowed work on Empire Wind to resume, the states say the broader pause on permitting and leasing continues to have harmful economic effects.
The states said the agencies implementing Trump’s order never said why they were abruptly changing longstanding policy supporting wind energy development.
Saris agreed, saying the policy “constitutes a change of course from decades of agencies issuing (or denying) permits related to wind energy projects.”
The defendants “candidly concede that the sole factor they considered in deciding to stop issuing permits was the President’s direction to do so,” Saris wrote.
An offshore wind energy trade group welcomed the ruling.
“Overturning the unlawful blanket halt to offshore wind permitting activities is needed to achieve our nation’s energy and economic priorities of bringing more power online quickly, improving grid reliability, and driving billions of new American steel manufacturing and shipbuilding investments,” Oceantic Network CEO Liz Burdock said in a statement.
Agencies including the US Departments of the Interior and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency have been implementing a directive to halt all new approvals needed for both onshore and offshore wind projects pending a review of leasing and permitting practices.
Siding with a group of 17 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia, US District Judge Patti Saris in Boston said those agencies had failed to provide reasoned explanations for the actions they took to carry out the directive Trump issued on his first day back in office on January 20.
They could not lawfully under the Administrative Procedure Act indefinitely decline to review applications for permits, added Saris, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat whose state led the legal challenge, called the ruling “a big victory in our fight to keep tackling the climate crisis” in a social media post.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement that Trump through his order had “unleashed America’s energy dominance to protect our economic and national security.”
Trump has sought to boost government support for fossil fuels and maximize output in the United States, the world’s top oil and gas producer, after campaigning for the presidency on the refrain of “drill, baby, drill.”
The states, led by New York, sued in May, after the Interior Department ordered Norway’s Equinor to halt construction on its Empire Wind offshore wind project off the coast of New York.
While the administration allowed work on Empire Wind to resume, the states say the broader pause on permitting and leasing continues to have harmful economic effects.
The states said the agencies implementing Trump’s order never said why they were abruptly changing longstanding policy supporting wind energy development.
Saris agreed, saying the policy “constitutes a change of course from decades of agencies issuing (or denying) permits related to wind energy projects.”
The defendants “candidly concede that the sole factor they considered in deciding to stop issuing permits was the President’s direction to do so,” Saris wrote.
An offshore wind energy trade group welcomed the ruling.
“Overturning the unlawful blanket halt to offshore wind permitting activities is needed to achieve our nation’s energy and economic priorities of bringing more power online quickly, improving grid reliability, and driving billions of new American steel manufacturing and shipbuilding investments,” Oceantic Network CEO Liz Burdock said in a statement.
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